10 more coronavirus deaths at Black Country, Birmingham and Staffordshire hospitals
Ten more coronavirus patient deaths have been announced at hospitals across the Black Country, Birmingham and Staffordshire.
Sunday's announcement means 2,078 patients have now died with Covid-19 in hospitals across the region.
This figure does not include deaths in care homes or the wider community, which are not released on a local level on a daily basis.
Across England, the hospital death toll increased by 178 to 23,149 today, with the youngest patient a 32-year-old with underlying health conditions.
The latest government figures released, which do include deaths away from hospital, put the UK-wide death toll at 31,855 although other official statistics suggest the death toll has already passed 36,500.
Of the 178 patients confirmed to have died on Sunday, four were in the care of the University Hospitals of North Midlands NHS Trust which runs Stafford's County Hospital and Royal Stoke University Hospital, taking the death toll in Staffordshire to 243.
Three more patients were announced to have died at the Sandwell and West Birmingham NHS Trust, taking the death toll at the trust which runs Sandwell General and City Hospital to 307.
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Two more deaths were confirmed at the Royal Wolverhampton NHS Trust, which runs New Cross and Cannock Chase hospitals, where 253 patients have now died with the virus.
And one more death was confirmed at the Dudley Group NHS Foundation Trust, which runs Russells Hall, taking the death toll there to 232.
No new deaths were confirmed at Walsall Manor, where 177 coronavirus patients have died, or at the University Hospitals Birmingham NHS Foundation Trust, the region's largest, where 818 patients have died.
The trust runs Queen Elizabeth Hospital along with three other hospitals in Birmingham and has had more Covid-19 patients die in its care than any other hospital trust in the country.
No new deaths were announced in Worcestershire where the hospital death toll remains at 243.
The daily figures include Covid-19 patients whose deaths were confirmed in the previous 24 hours, not who died in that period.
Some deaths are not included in the statistics for several days due to testing or family members being informed. Sunday's figures included patients who died between March 2 and yesterday, although all but 30 of the deaths took place in the last three days.
The news comes as the Prime Minister is dropping his “stay home, protect the NHS, save lives” slogan in favour of “stay alert, control the virus and save lives” as he seeks to get people back to work.
Behavioural expert Professor Susan Michie, who is a member of the scientific advisory group for emergencies (Sage), said Mr Johnson’s new messaging is “a long way” from being clear and consistent.
Leaders in all of the devolved nations have said they will not use the new message, which they were not consulted over.
Mr Johnson gave more detail on the new advice, saying people should “stay at home as much as possible” and “limit contact with other people”.
Mr Johnson is planning to urge workers who cannot do their jobs from home to begin returning to their workplaces while following social-distancing rules.
“This is the dangerous bit,” he warned ahead of the announcement.
It is understood that a warning system administered by a new “joint biosecurity centre” will detect local increases in infection rates, with the view to locally alter restrictions in England.
With the alerts ranging from green in level one to red in level five, Mr Johnson is expected to say the nation is close to moving down from four to three.
They say that action must be taken quickly so that “lessons can be learnt” from the Covid-19 crisis to help shape future responses, should the UK be hit by further waves of the virus.
A pre-action letter sent by the Doctor’s Association UK (DA) and the Good Law Project (GLP), who are bringing the challenge, details a list of “recurrent and systemic” failures in PPE procurement and supply.
The list includes the lack of gowns, visors or body bags in the Government’s PPE stockpile in February, as well as complaints about the widely reported shipment of 400,000 gowns sourced from Turkey, many of which were deemed unfit for use.
